“Life Is Worth Living”---Bishop Sheen vs. Cardinal Spellman
The Vatican has announced the beatification of Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, with his canonization as a saint to follow in the not-too-distant future. As a Catholic kid growing up in the Bronx in the 1950s, I already regarded him way back then---as did most of my coreligionists---as a near-supernatural being. He was, somewhat unbelievably, a television star, whose weekly program, called “Life Is Worth Living,” was must-see t.v. for everyone in my household and community. He was charismatic, brilliant, and witty. And so popular that he triggered the ire and jealousy of his boss, the odious Francis Cardinal Spellman, Archbishop of New York, who eventually ended Sheen’s t.v career and exiled him to upstate New York.
These two poems are from my book Boy Drinkers (Hanging Loose Press, 2007).
S P E L L
_______________________________
Sometime in 1953, my beautiful sister Eileen
fell under the spell of Bishop Fulton J. Sheen.
His piercing eyes won the hearts of all the Irish girls
and his ratings that year even beat out Milton Berle’s.
We watched “Life Is Worth Living” every week
and marveled that so rare a man, who could speak
so miraculously, convert the rich through his amazing powers,
help the poor and squash the reds, was one of ours.
Mary once sent him a ten-year-old girl in white with a rose
as a sign he shouldn’t fret about his fame, expensive clothes,
his dalliances with Clare Boothe Luce and Loretta Young.
But then the devil sent him Cardinal Spellman to spoil the fun.
Eileen heard him speak one night that year and was so taken
with him she gave him all she had but for one subway token.
A U D A C I T Y
____________________________________
Every Catholic in New York cringed
at the sight of him. Holy-mary
piety, androgynous, nunlike demeanor,
fat cherubic face only made his warlike
politics and egomania seem more intense,
scarier. Inside we all knew he was mean
and vain. Kids from every parish cut down
in Vietnam while Spellman waltzed with
J. Edgar Hoover and built monuments to himself.
Spellman Hall at my college,
other Spellman halls at other schools.
A little archipelago of namesakes.
Even children mocked his audacity.
When Cardinal Spellman High School opened,
in a crummy part of the Bronx in a temporary,
ugly, squat building, no one wanted to go.
But the archdiocese offered incentives
to tempt the flock (an easy ride,
low tuition) and soon enrollment surged.
Even my father, school custodian
and good Catholic, had no use for him.
The Cardinal set up a bogus pension plan
leaving those who had labored a lifetime
for the church with nothing at the end
but a handshake and a shove out the door.
You didn’t retire under Spellman.
You worked till you died poor.
______________________________________________________________________________
Photo triptych: Clare Boothe Luce, Eileen Winch, Loretta Young.
Click here for more on Bishop Sheen, and here for Cardinal Spellman.
Spellman Hall, Iona College (now University), New Rochelle, NY
©Terence
Winch
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Looking at the photo of Kennedy and Nixon, flanking a cherubic-looking Spellman, I regress many years. How happy and handsome they look in their formal wear. Was Nixon really taller than 6' Kennedy? What would the future bring? What was to come.
ReplyDeleteEmily---Nixon was probably cheating.
Deletewe watched him on tv religiously in the lally household, he seemed heroic and sexy and witty and wise for a while back then
ReplyDeleteDear Michael: Well, there was no other way than "religiously" to watch him.
DeleteWhew-- you 're rattling my Catholic infancy, before the Unitarians pounced on me. I vaguely remember Bishop Sheen on B&W TV, but his intensity made me uncomfortable. Your poems of course are wonderful--I will hold the wafer of their wisdom on my tongue!
ReplyDeleteThank you, David, mon ami. My sister says she found him mesmerizing, but I can see how he might have scared you. He certainly scared Spellman.
DeleteTerence, both poems are delightful. In the absence of Dante, Chaucer, and Milton to wield the cudgel, you've done an admirable job of lambasting Spellman.
ReplyDeleteP.S.: The loveliest member of the triptych is indeed "my...sister Eileen" (with apologies to Ruth McKenney).
Thanks, Michael. Eileen, at 90, is still beautiful. We talk every day.
DeleteGood stuff as always, TP, and timely, indeed. Thanks.
DeleteGood vs. evil, each in a Red Hat. Sheen was the first (1967) US Bishop to publicly and unequivocally oppose the Vietnam War and call for the immediate return of all US military from Vietnam. He also was personally involved in civil rights work in Alabama from the 1940's, and was responsible ($$ and activism) for the 1950 construction in Mobile, Alabama of the first hospital in Alabama that would care for black women. He did the latter while teaching at Catholic University.
Sheen understood the Good News, and preached it in words and in action.
Thanks, Pat. I did not know of his various good works. The guy's a saint!
DeleteAs always here, history with poignancy, so much to remember and to feel. This last a gift.
ReplyDeleteThank you, anonymous.
DeleteThe reminder of Bishop Sheen’s many works was a joy to reflect upon. He was so special. Eileen
ReplyDeleteThis--and these--are terrific. The music of ending with taken/token is like shifting to a minor key when the futility of the gesture comes out. "Token," for sure. I think you really trip people up on their expectations in contemporary rhymed verse.
ReplyDeleteWhen my father grew up in Montreal, churchmen were unanimously anti-Semitic. Worked with the city government to keep Jews out of any say in municipal affairs. Jewish boys (he said) paid it back by making small trash fires and pissing on them, calling out, "The church is on fire!" By the '30s, they were not mostly pro-Hitler, but they were certainly pro-Mussolini. As you may know, Montreal prepared for the move of the Pope and Vatican business if the Vatican were in danger.
So in the US, Bishop Sheen's humanism, openness to modern ideas including science, democracy, vernacular liturgy, etc., were all kind of a shock. Then his defense of the Jews of Europe. He was of course much discussed in synagogues and temples. And Spellman was universally disliked and resented among Jews. But he did receive credit for his vigorous work on condemnation of anti-semitism at the Vatican council.
BUT what I thought of Montreal catholicism was summed up in visits to the Oratory of St Joseph, which was the project of the humble miracle-worker Brother André. As you enter, you see dozens of crutches and wheelchairs hanging on the walls, discarded by worshippers who were said to be cured there. Well, you know, the Jews don't have anything at all like that. He was still around when my father was a child. I was walking around Portland OR in June when I was pretty amazed to walk right by a Church of St André Bessette. No Portland connection that I can see, and pretty much all he's known for is getting the Oratory built. But I guess everybody likes a miracle worker.
Just wow!
DeleteThank you, Bernard, for that perspective. I am relieved to know that Sheen wasn't an antisemite, as indeed many RC clerics were back then (and probably are now). Spellman (ugh!) was succeeded as NY archbishop by Terence Cooke, who not only spelled his first name the way it should be spelled, but was also a decent and benevolent man.
DeleteHow do the likes of Spellman arise publicly? Another villain was that Dr. Tom Dooley.
ReplyDelete